This week, the first returns on President Trump's trade policy are coming in. Until now, there was very little in the way of specifics, and the policy had largely consisted of bluster and promises: Existing deals were horrible; new deals would be amazing.

Not only that, but the new deals would justify seemingly protectionist measures like tariffs on steel and aluminum.

This week, though, details of a new deal with South Korea have started to emerge in reports – and they are distinctly underwhelming.

Recall that South Korea is a close security ally; that it already had a free trade deal with the United States (KORUS), initially negotiated in 2007 and entered into force in 2012; and that it is a major U.S. supplier of steel imports (third in 2017, behind Canada and Brazil).

The Trump administration initially threatened to withdraw from the KORUS agreement. It then entered into talks to revise the KORUS deal. Oddly, it did so without formally notifying Congress, thereby limiting what it could do in negotiations. The administration gained additional leverage by threatening South Korea with the Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs. South Korea was granted a temporary exclusion from those tariffs, but the administration made clear that countries would need to perform if those exclusions were to be extended.

So what wonders has the administration wrought? The actual deal has not been released, but per reports:

The United States will maintain its 25% tariff on light trucks for an additional 20 years, with full phase-out by 2041.

South Korea will increase its annual quota for cars that meet U.S. safety standards but not Korean standards to 50,000 per manufacturer, from 25,000 per manufacturer.

South Korea will limit its steel exports to 70% of the annual average from 2015 to 2017.

Taking these “benefits” one by one, the first means that U.S. consumers may pay more for light trucks for longer. But there are two important caveats.

First, if Korean manufacturers want to get around the tariffs, they can just set up facilities in North America. This is what Japanese automakers did in response to U.S. protectionism in the 1980s. Yes, that would bring foreign investment, but it would also expose domestic light truck sales to competition.

Second, if the Trump administration has taught us anything, it is that we may wish to be wary of projecting current policies 20 years into the future. These things are subject to revision. On balance, longer truck tariffs seem an exceedingly meager accomplishment.

What about the expanded quota for American car exports? The problem is that there is little evidence these quotas were the main obstacle to U.S. auto sales in the first place. So far, no U.S. automaker even pushed up against the 25,000-car limit. Last year, Ford and GM each shipped fewer than 10,000 vehicles. At least in the near term, expanding a non-binding quota has no beneficial effect.

Finally, limiting steel exports is triply problematic. While those shipments will not be subject to tariffs, the result will still be to raise prices of steel types for which South Korea is a major supplier. The first problem is that such “voluntary export restraints” mean the United States gets the pain of the price increase but none of the tariff revenue. The second problem is that such policies were banned by agreement at the World Trade Organization (although enforcement prospects are unclear). The third problem is that this belies the claim that the steel protection was just a means to induce negotiation that would lower overall barriers. As the negotiations conclude, the barriers remain.

In sum, it’s hard to discern any actual benefits for the average American. And now we turn to costs. There are two big ones.

The push for South Korea to maintain steel quotas increases the role of the Korean government in that economy. Among other things, the government will need to decide which producers are permitted to export which amounts and benefit from elevated prices. Across decades of pushing for a “level playing field,” the United States has been trying to do just the opposite – to get governments out of such determinations and let market forces work.

The United States also showed itself to be an unreliable ally. While Korean concessions appear to have been minimal, these were negotiations conducted under threat and at a time when South Korea was particularly vulnerable, given the situation with North Korea. Further, if the Trump administration was unwilling to respect past agreements, why should any negotiating partner believe it will respect new agreements?

The cost, then, is reputational damage to the United States.

In the past, South Korea has sometimes seemed torn about whether it wanted to be closer to the United States or to China, its near neighbor. The latest Trump trade maneuver may have resulted in a workable settlement, but it surely did nothing to enhance trust or amity toward the United States. We may realize the full cost of this shift only over a longer period of time.

After two years of grandiose promises, the early reports of a reworked South Korea deal suggest that the Trump administration may have paid a steep price to get nothing of value.

I am Senior Fellow on the Global Economy at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and teach International Business Strategy at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. I have previously been Senior Economist for Trade for President George W. Bush’s Council o...